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Prof. Dr. Frank P. Luyten

Frank P. Luyten, MD, PhD is board certified Rheumatologist, tenured full Professor and Head of the Division of Rheumatology at the University Hospitals Leuven; Director of the Laboratory for Skeletal Development and Joint Disorders and of Prometheus, the Tissue Engineering Division at the KULeuven; also Chairman of the Department of Musculoskeletal Sciences at the KULeuven, Belgium.

He obtained his MD, PhD degree and Board Certification in Rheumatology at the University of Ghent, Belgium. He spent his postdoctoral training at the National Institute of Dental Research, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA. He became subsequently group leader of the Developmental Biology Unit at the Bone Research Branch, NIDR, NIH, Bethesda, USA.

Among his scientific achievements: two important contributions are the discovery of Osteogenin and Cartilage Derived Morphogenetic Proteins, members of the family of Bone Morphogenetic Proteins and Growth and Differentiation Factors; furthermore the discovery of Frizbee (FRZB), an antagonist of Wnt signaling. He continues to contribute to the understanding of the role of both BMP and Wnt pathways in the formation of skeletal tissues, joint morphogenesis and postnatal joint biology. More recently, his group has provided strong evidence for the involvement of these same pathways in human arthritic diseases. His expertise in regenerative medicine is further supported by contributions in the field of cellular therapeutics, cartilage/joint surface repair and the discovery of adult stem cells in synovial tissue.

Prof. Dr. F.P. Luyten is also founder, scientific and medical advisor, and member of the board of directors of TiGeniX, a biotech spin-off of the Universities of Leuven and Ghent. He serves as advisor and board member of other biotech companies in the field of Regenerative Medicine.

Frank Luyten's lab webpage

Prof. Dr. Danny Huylebroeck

Danny Huylebroeck is Professor of Developmental Biology, at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Leuven, Belgium, and VIB group leader there of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in the Department of Molecular and Developmental Genetics (VIB11) and the Center for Human Genetics. From 1995 till 2007 he was director of the smaller Department of Developmental Biology of VIB on the Leuven campus. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Gent (1985) through research on antigenic drift and shift of influenza viruses in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (with W. Fiers). Thereafter, he was a 2-year EMBO post-doc fellow in the Cell Biology Program at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany, in the group of H. Garoff. Since 1988, he studies where and how various components of the TGFb signaling system determine cell fate and differentiation in vertebrate embryos.

Danny Huylebroeck's lab webpage

Mrs Annemieke Vandereijcken
Mrs Carine Decock